The Way of the Gun
by Evergreen
Summary: McGarrett and the 5-0 team catch a case that starts with a gun and ends with a bang!
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1:**

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."  
― Mark Twain

He was aware of a thumping noise that echoed in his head in time with his heartbeat. A strobe light was blinking red through his closed eyelids, which were way too heavy to open at this moment. His head felt slow and fuzzy and he thought he heard muffled voices in between the thumps. There was a sensation of movement and hands on him, but he really didn't care to think about it too much. A low moaning seemed to be coming from somewhere near his head, but he couldn't be sure. It was very hard to hear anything over the thumping.

_Holy mother of…how the hell did anyone survive this mess?_ The emergency medical technician fought against his cynical thoughts as he and his partner struggled to extricate the second victim from one of the cars involved in the crash. There had been a huge pileup on the 99, near Pearl Harbor. Some kind of police chase and subsequent carnage involving at least 10 cars and one tourist-filled bus.

_Earlier that Day…_

"C'mon, Danno, I'm driving. Give me the keys." Lt. Commander Steven McGarrett, head of the Governor's 5-0 police Task Force, held out his hand to his partner, Detective Danny Williams, who was desperately trying to juggle two cups of coffee and his car keys. "It seems your hands are full. Here, let me help you." McGarrett slipped the keys off the ends of Danny's fingers, from which the keys were dangling.

"Hey! Why do you always get to drive my car?" Danny successfully righted the coffee cups, with only a few drops of the liquid on his thankfully dark tie.

"Because you drive like a girl and we have a case. I'd like to get there before sunset." McGarrett flashed him a smile and slid into the driver's seat. Danny leaned in and handed one of the cups to his partner before carefully maneuvering himself into the passenger seat while still holding his cup.

"Steven, I certainly do not drive like a girl. Even if I did, I'm not sure if that is even an insult. Kono and my ex-wife both are excellent drivers, I'll have you know." Steve had already shifted into reverse and was moving the silver car out of the parking space in front of their headquarters and towards the road.

"Shut up and drink your coffee. From what I understand of the scene, you'll be glad you didn't eat anything." McGarrett spoke to windshield as he looked to merge into traffic.

"Take the 99, the other routes will be backed up from rush hour."

"Yes, Danny, I know. I _have_ lived here for a little while."

"Oh, I am certainly sorry that I cannot be of any assistance to _Lord of the Highways_. Please forgive my interruption, my _Lord_." Danny's voice dripped with sarcasm, but Steve knew it was all, or mostly, in fun. Steve smiled again and said nothing to provoke another diatribe from his partner.

The duo arrived at the scene of the hit and run from about ten minutes later. The techs were already buzzing around the scene. Steve searched out the coroner to get his take on the situation. "Max? What's the word?"

"Actually, Commander, I have more than a word. Although this scene was excellently _staged_ to look like a hit and run, the victim has actually been dead for more than 5 hours. We will get the body back to the lab and will be able to determine a more accurate TOD." Max's succinct explanations rarely needed any follow-up, but of course, Danny had a question.

"Any ideas of what caused his death? From what I can see, there's pretty extensive damage here." Danny glanced again at the body and immediately regretted it. Although there really wasn't all that much blood, the victim's sightless eyes gave him the creeps.

"Exactly, Detective. We'll have more for you soon." Max wandered off to speak to two technicians who had started to prepare the body for transport to the ME's office.

Officer Kono Kalakawa and Detective Chin Ho Kelly, the remaining two members of the 5-0 Task Force, had been conducting a door-to-door search around the neighborhood near the scene and had not come up with much to share with the Detective and Commander. Apparently, no one had seen or heard anything. Kono sighed in frustration at the tenth door to close in her face, not bringing her any closer to figuring out what happened this morning.

"Any ID on the vic?" Danny was asking over his shoulder to Max, trying really hard to get the mental picture of the dead man to go away.

"Nothing so far, Detective. As you can see," Max held up the man's hand, "his fingertips are quite damaged, which will make identification from fingerprints difficult. He is missing a good portion of intact jaw as well, so a dental id will also be challenging. We will be running a DNA scan through the database, but as you know, that is far from comprehensive…"

Danny had already stopped listening. His eyes had caught on the glint of something in the interior of the car. While Steve continued to listen to Max's summary, Danny walked over to the car, carefully leaned in and slid his hand down into the storage pocket on the back passenger-side door. He extricated a small caliber silver-handled pistol, a type he'd never seen before. _It almost looked custom…_

He instinctively hunched down as he felt first, then heard, something whiz past his right ear and thunk into the car frame.

"Shots fired! Everyone down!" Someone yelled from Danny's left.

Danny fell backwards onto his backside from the shock and just sat stunned for a few beats.

"Danny, are you alright?" Kono's worried face swam into his view and he realized that he hadn't been paying attention to what was going on. Uniformed police and other officials were swarming the site, looking for the shooter.

Danny felt at the wetness that seemed to be gathering at his right ear and his fingers came back red. He looked up at Kono and blinked slowly at her. _What was going on_?

"Oh God, Steve! Danny's hit!" Kono looked up and searched wildly. "Max!"

"_What?"_ Danny thought. "_What's she talking about? I'm fine."_ He tried to stand up but the world seemed to be spinning out of his control.

Someone was laying him flat on his back and pushing painfully on the side of his head. He tried to push their hand away, but they were insistent. All he could do was stare up at the sky and think about how today _had_ started out pretty good.

Just a few minutes before, Steve's head had turned the instant he heard the first shot and watched as Danny fell forwards, bounced off the car slightly and then backwards from the momentum. Steve had hit the ground when he heard someone yell about the shots fired and tried to search for the location of the shooter. Too much sun glare and no obvious locations didn't give him much of a chance. He waited twenty seconds after the third and what turned out to be the final shot before running over to Danny and Kono.

Max was already attempting to lay Danny down on the pavement, but was having trouble. Danny was struggling, but with no real direction. Steve gently helped to guide the detective to the prone position. Steve held the gauze that Max had produced on Danny's head as tightly as he could. Although Max had directed him to press hard, he did so, reluctantly, as Danny moaned in protest.

"How's he doing, Max?" Steve asked, worry creeping into his normally confident voice. Max pulled his stethoscope out of his ears after he gently put Danny's arm down next to him.

"His pulse is rapid, but strong. I think he may have a concussion, caused by the bullet creasing his skull. We'll have to x-ray him to make sure. I called an ambulance, but they are not able to come in until the scene is cleared."

"Chin, sit-rep?" Steve stood and spun around in one step, facing his steadfast colleague. In his haste, Steve slipped back into SEAL mode to assess the current situation.

"From what we can tell, the shooter was stationed in the two-story building on the southeast corner of the parking lot. Found some bullet casings. Clear view of the car. Shooter's long gone. Lab techs are combing the area for evidence. Should have a more detailed report for you soon."

"Okay, thanks." He stepped out of the shadow of the car and yelled to all the personnel within earshot, "Listen up, I want a perimeter! We need medical attention here. Let the ambulance through!"

Steve got Danny settled at the hospital and within the first hour, the Detective was whining about the accommodations. Steve smiled at that, because he knew a complaining Danny was one who was on his way back to health. Steve had made the call to Rachel, who was worried, but had promised to bring Grace by after she got home from school.

Danny laid his head back on the pillows once most of the concerned officers and doctors had left the room. He found the pain was slowly subsiding since they hooked him up to some of the _good stuff_. "Steven, what the hell actually happened? Did you find the gun?"

"No, the shooter only left shell casings at the scene. We think it may have been some kind of assault rifle…"

"No, Steven, the gun that I found in the car."

"What gun?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2:**

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."  
― Oscar Wilde

After Danny had settled back to sleep after mightily complaining about a headache, Steve took the short drive to the coroner's office to clear his head. If he never saw Danny in a hospital bed again, it would be too soon. Max had sent over some preliminary information about the vic both to his phone and to Kono and Chin at HQ. Kono and Chin were pouring through the recordings from area street cameras to see if they could pinpoint the time and circumstances of the body and car being set up to look like an accident. The car's plates showed it to be stolen about 2 months ago. Uniforms were sent to the car owner's address to follow up. Max was still unable to identify the remains based on normal identification methods, but he was running DNA through the CODEX database. CSI was processing the scene and had made arrangements to bring the car back to their lab for deeper analysis. Steve asked them to also check for drug traces. Although there had been no indication that this was the result of drug activity, he just wanted to make sure that they weren't missing anything.

The CSI techs at the scene had also confirmed that no additional guns were found in the car or anywhere at the scene. Steve didn't doubt that Danny had found a gun, but the fact that it had disappeared from a locked-down crime scene was very disturbing. He fought the desire to return to the crime scene and take a closer look around himself, but he didn't want to be gone from the hospital too long.

He pushed open the doors to the coroner's office and instinctively took shallower breaths, not wanting to inhale the scents of death too deeply. His eyes landed on Max who was in the process of sewing back up the Y-incision on the victim.

"Max, any news?"

"Why, Commander, I didn't expect to see you until at least another hour or so. How is Detective Williams? I expect that the diagnosis of concussion did little to quell his desire to talk." Max was still completing a set of complex knots as he started to look up at Steve.

"No, not really. He's resting comfortably, well, as comfortable as they could make him." Steve looked down at the ashen body on the table, partially covered with a white sheet. "Anything you can tell me about our victim?"

"Well, he's Caucasian, approximately 25-35 years old. 90 kilograms. Damage to his face and fingers have made physical identification very problematic. I have sent a DNA sample for a database search. As I stated in the field, his body temperature and lividity suggested that he had expired at least 5 hours before we had arrived on scene. Based on liver temperature, I can say that it points to approximate TOD at one o'clock this morning. Trace analysis of his clothing shows soil particulates and gunpowder residue on the skin of his lower right forearm and sleeve, indicating that he fired a gun recently. The soil sample is in the Mass-Spec as we speak. More on that within the hour. His shoe treads showed a similar type of soil and we are running samples on that as well. Curiously, there does not seem to be any other contaminants on the body other than his own blood. Type A+, so not too exotic there either. Let me finish up here and I'll get my report to you by this afternoon. Please send my well-wishes to the Detective when you see him." Max looked back down and resumed his sewing. Steve got the impression that he had just been dismissed.

Steve nodded and he made his way back out into the corridor before drawing in a deep breath. He pulled out his phone called in to HQ for an update.

Danny started to come to after what seemed like two days of sleep and the first thing he felt was nauseous. He shot up in the bed, eyes searching for anything to help. Hands stuck a basin under his chin as he was forced to relieve his stomach of its contents. Vertigo kept him clinging to the rail of the bed with his other hand. He closed his eyes in an effort to stop the spinning.

"Deep breaths, it'll help clear your head." Someone shoved an oxygen mask over his face and he tried desperately to calm the heaving. He opened his eyes slowly to the form of a large man wearing blue scrubs. "Hey, my name's Bob. I'm your nurse today. Here," he helped ease the detective back to a prone position, "let me help you." Danny blinked tears of panic out of eyes and looked at Bob.

"Thanks." He squeaked through the oxygen mask.

"No problem. Concussions will do that to you. It'll get better. I'll be back to check on you in a bit. Just push the call button if you need anything else." The nurse made some notes on the whiteboard in the room and strode out.

Danny just nodded lamely and tried to melt into the pillows. His mind travelled back to the gun that he had pulled out of the door of the car. It was well balanced for a small gun. It had fit well into his hand although he thought that perhaps it had been made for a woman as it had an almost elegant appearance. The handle had white inlay, which he supposed could have been bone or ivory. It had some carving, but he didn't have time to study it in detail. He couldn't remember much after that- little bits and pieces until he had woken up in the ambulance with a massive headache and horrible nausea. He tried his best to keep calm and he would smile when Rachel brought Grace around to see him. He hated the idea that she would see him again in a hospital bed, especially with a bandage around his head. At least they didn't have to shave his head… His hands flew up to the side of his head and felt around gingerly. Everything seemed to be there. He didn't want go all Rambo like Steve and practically shave his head. Hell, Grace wouldn't even recognize him without his hair.

"All there, cuz?" Chin asked as Danny blew out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. His colleague and close friend walked in the room with a paper bag and a cup of coffee.

"Does it look all there?" Danny asked with a little more concern than he meant to convey. "Hey, are those malasadas in there by any chance?" One whiff of the pastries and the nausea had fled.

"There could be. Are you supposed to be eating _outside_ food?" A smile crept over the Hawaiian's face.

"I'm sure it's fine. Now hand it over." The bag had almost made the connection with Danny's hand when Steve intercepted it.

"Let's check with the doc first, huh?" Steve said while taking a look in the bag. "From Koko's?" Chin nodded. "Maybe you shouldn't be eating outside food until the doc clears you. I'll have to check on the quality for you anyway." Steve helped himself.

"Hey!" Danny started to protest.

"Hey, what, Danno?" Grace sprinted in as Rachel nodded at Danny from the doorway.

"Monkey!" Grace leapt onto the bed and hugged her father. It was Grand Central in his hospital room all of a sudden.

About an hour later, Danny's energy was flagging and Rachel wanted to take Grace home. After his daughter hugged and kissed him for about five minutes, Rachel dragged Grace out of the room with the promise of coming back tomorrow. Chin had already left about 15 minutes prior and so Steve was finally alone and bursting to discuss what had happened with Danny.

"All right, I can see that you really want to talk, and so, instead of a nap, we will talk, because I know how rare this situation is." And in an even more rare event, Danny stopped talking and waited.


End file.
